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Sunday, January 25, 2015

I'm not going to lie - these aren't the healthiest cookies.

But, they are delicious and have some redeeming health qualities!

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Almond Coconut Cranberry Cookies

These cookies are golden, craggy, crunchy on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside, filled with big chunks of almonds, chocolate and dried cranberries, and accentuated with crispy bits of shaved coconut.

Drooling yet?

Now that I have your attention, there are a few healthy attributes:

Half of the flour is whole wheat

Cholesterol-free

Omega-3's from flax seeds

Heart-healthy fiber from old-fashioned oatmeal & almonds

Dark chocolate

Not necessarily healthier, but meet the following diet requirements: egg-free, dairy-free, vegan.

Reality: these cookies may be better for you than the alternative without the healthy attributes, but they still have plenty of sugar and calories. They are a treat, not a health food.

What about coconut oil?

One of the nutrition questions I get asked most is whether coconut oil is healthful or harmful. There answer is complicated. In the 1980's highly processed tropical oils (palm and coconut) got a bad rap due to their high saturated fat content. Since then, science has guided us away (rightfully so!) from the "all fat is bad" mantra. We then went through a phase that accepted oils that are liquid at room temperature - monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs) and polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) - as healthy but saturated fat as evil. More recently, there have been an increasing number of studies to show that all saturated fats (SFAs) are not created equal. For example, virgin coconut oil increases HDL (good) cholesterol more than it increases LDL (bad) cholesterol and therefore has a favorable effect on the overall cholesterol profile. There is no evidence that coconut oil increases heart disease. In fact, the countries in the world that have the highest intakes of virgin coconut oil, and have not yet turned to the Western Diet, have very low rates of heart disease.

Choosing coconut oil:

My recommendations are based on available information. There are many unknowns when it comes to coconut oil, however, so sometimes I just have to make an educated guess.

I use virgin (aka. pure) organic coconut oil. This has a distinctly coconutty flavor, but lacks the processing with hexane and hydrogenation of many of the non-organic, refined coconut oils.

Look for the terms "cold-pressed," "expeller-pressed," and "centrifuged" as this means that the extraction of the oil from the coconut was likely not done with chemicals.

Look for extra virgin, virgin or pure coconut oil.

Avoid "refined" coconut oil unless it's organic. Refined coconut oil has very little coconut taste, but if it's not organic, it likely went through chemical extraction, hydrogenation and bleaching.

Bleaching is often used to help hide the color and taste of rancid oil.

Hydrogenation is what is definitely bad for you and increases risk of heart disease.

Hexane and other organic solvents used in chemical extraction can be safe if regulated and handled properly, however, hexane is a known neurotoxin, so I tend to avoid it in food when possible.